


Not Here For The Books

by Lotornomiko



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Dark Romance, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2018-02-09
Packaged: 2018-07-24 11:45:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7507048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lotornomiko/pseuds/Lotornomiko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's not here for the books but he'll more than settle for her.</p><p>Hook Belle pairing, dark pirate romance, season 2 cannon divergence. Better summary to hopefully come to me soon. Non con warnings, and even one for a possible character death (Though not of Hook or Belle.).</p><p>THE SECOND HALF OF CHAPTER FOUR HAS BEEN COMPLETELY REWRITTEN!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Standard Disclaimer time: I do not own the TV show Once Upon a Time or it's characters. I make no money off of this story, or off the TV show and it's characters. This is done purely for fun and entertainment. And because I'm always having more ideas than I can possibly ever write out...X_X
> 
> \----Michelle

The steps stretch out before me, hundreds upon hundreds of carved smooth stone that spiral upwards in a dizzying display. Such a sight is designed to lead one into thinking that the stairs go on for just about forever. They don't. The steps come to a landing just short of that. 

The distance from the landing to the floor below it, is staggering in more ways than one. It had once taken me HOURS to climb up these steps. Now I do so in what feels like a matter of seconds, all but flying to the top of the spiraling stair case. My hook is sharp and at the ready, my arm already raised up with the intent to kill. Even before the faceless guard can ask the question he's asked before a thousand times at least, I am slashing open his throat, my good hand grabbing for the hilt of his sword. I am already turning, using my hook to catch at and block the blade that swings out at me. With the sound of the sword being dragged free of the dying guard's scabbard, I bring my stolen blade into play. 

Pain then explodes in my side, my teeth baring in a feral snarl as I recognize that I was too slow. I'm almost always too slow when it comes to the second guard. I can feel the blood spilling, feel the pain hissing along the tear, but it's not life threatening. It never is. His sword has only grazed me, a mostly superficial wound that hurts more than it can ever hold hope to kill me. The same can't be said for the guard, his sword already swinging about a second time. He means to take my neck this time, but quickly I am dropping, rolling forward to come up fighting. It's my sword that cuts him open from hip to shoulder, my attack that splatters his dark red blood all over the landing's floor. 

Even before the guard is done rattling out the last of his dying breath, I am leaving. Walking down a pathway that I have traversed so many times before. The door at the end of this shadowy corridor beckons me forward, the prize that is locked behind it making my blood quicken in anticipation. I all but run the last steps to it, wondering what it will be this time. The dream or the nightmare? Does it even matter, when the ending outcome is always the same? 

But I still hope for the dream. Still yearn for that moment when the door is unlocked, when she stands up and looks at me, and doesn't try to run screaming from the room. The smile that I will give her then, is always one tinged with relief. Because I don't want to have to hurt her, and yet I can't always help it. Some dark, predatory part of me reacts to her fear, to the way that she tries to flee from me, relishing the feel of her struggling body squirming against mine as I drag her back into the room. 

Even now there's that dark part of me that anticipates the struggle. That finds it arousing to force my kiss on her sweetly protesting lips. My hand actually shakes from the memory of it, my fingers making a clumsy go at unlocking the cell's door. 

She's already lurching upright, that brilliant blue of her eyes frightened and wary, but holding a spark of defiance to them. 

"The queen sent you, didn't she?" A stubborn lift of her chin, even as the woman shakes with her fear. "She wants you to kill me." 

Just like I've done a thousand times before, I speak in a tone meant to be the utmost in soothing. "I'm not here to kill you, love." I am already lowering myself to one knee, my hook and my hand reaching for the thick, heavy stone shackles that weigh down her legs. "I'm here to rescue you." 

It takes a concentrated effort to not sneak a peek at her as I work at opening the cuffs. The garment that she wears, bares one leg to me, a smooth expanse of pale skin that hasn't known the kiss of the sun in many a month's time. That leg is trembling in my grasp, the pointed tip of my hook working to pick open it's cuff's lock. 

"Rescue me?!" I hear her loudly exclaim, and then she pauses. "Who are you?" she asks, her voice much softer this time. 

I glance up from my work then, meet her eyes, as my hand reaches instinctively for the wrist she holds out to me. I hold her gaze for one long second, an almost nervous smile curving my lips, as my thumb sneaks a touch of her skin. I feel the pulse in her wrist, see the way her color brightens with the faintest sign of her blush. 

"A friend." I say at last, and every part of me wants to laugh with my victory. I don't see any sign of her screaming, my words having helped to calm the worst of her trembling. The snapping free of the last of the manacles chases away the remaining fright in her eyes, the woman looking at me like I am her savior made real. 

I know how this has actually gone down. Know the words that I have once spoken, the mistakes that I have once made. I don't do any of it now. I speak nothing of time, nothing of her father, and most of all, I speak nothing of HIM. 

With that smile still curving my lips, I help the woman rise to her feet. She sways before me, and without even having to think about it, I find my arms around her, steadying her with my strength. 

"Er....ah...thank you...." She whispers it uncertainly, glancing up at me with that lovely blue gaze. 

"It's not a problem." And it's not. She's like heaven in my arms, a trembling angel made real. She's not someone I ever want to let go of, but I am still so conscious of scaring her, and of how the dream can quickly turn into the nightmare instead. 

When she steps back, I let her. I watch as she does a nervous tuck of a curl of her brown hair behind one perfectly shaped ear. She's still got that faint dusting of color on her cheeks, and the woman can barely meet my eyes now. 

"We uh....we should get going then." She says, trying to look past me to the open door. "Before more guards can come...before SHE can come." 

"They won't be a problem. SHE won't be a problem." 

"How can you be sure?" She asks me, and I hesitate. 

"I just am." 

But that's not good enough for her. The blue eyed beauty frowns at me, parts her lips to say something more, but my finger is there instead. I gently press it to that soft flesh, whispering to her to just trust me. 

She stares at me with troubled eyes, the woman admitting that trust is not something that is easy for her to do. Especially in this kind of situation. She's been abused, her heart broken, the woman left in this tower to wither and die just like her hope has. I feel a genuine rage at the thought of just what she has been through, just what this woman has had to endure. That anger is not limited to just what others have done, but to myself as well, but I don't want to think about that right now. 

Instead I give her my hand, while maintaining my smile. She stares down at it, and I all but hold my breath, waiting for her decision. Will she trust me, or will she ultimately run? The relief eases out of me when she reaches out with her shaking hand, her fingers quickly gripping hold around mine. 

"You won't regret this." I tell her, gazing down into the dazzling brilliance of her eyes. She looks up at me and nods, a resolute expression clothing her face. She's being so strong, so brave. She's never more beautiful than when she trusts me, my smile widening in pleasure. I could stand there all day just staring at her, but a clearing of the woman's throat, reminds me of what I have to do. 

With heat flaring on my skin, I turn and lead the woman out of the room that has been her prison cell for far too many months. The narrow passage awaits us, her body brushing against mine and it takes a new kind of strength of will not to turn and just take the kiss that I am burning for from her.

I hear a whimper behind me, turn and realize that I have gripped her fingers a little too hard as a direct result of my secret desire. Color stains my cheeks, that burning heat turning embarrassed. I mutter a quick sorry, watch as she does a quick shake of her head, the woman then dropping hold of my hand. I immediately regret the loss of her warmth, my fingers feeling lonely without her hand to grip them. 

"You never told me your name." She says, as we resume walking down that narrow passageway. 

"Aye, I never did." It's not the answer that she wants, and I can imagine the way she must be frowning now. 

"But you're a friend?" She continues. "A friend of who? Just who sent you to find me?" A pause and then she starts to speak the one name I have never wanted to hear. "Did Rumplestiltskin..." 

"I'm no friend of his!" I interrupt with a growl. I turn at her gasp, see the wide eyed look of surprise that she gives me, and it is the only thing holding me back from turning the dream into a complete nightmare. I take a calm, steadying breath, fight the words that want to come out. The words that want to damn Rumplestiltskin, and dash her ideas of claiming friendship with such a monster. 

"Th...then who...?" 

"Your father." I finally ground out. "Your father sent me..." 

"My father? But..but how?!" She exclaims. A familiar frustration fills me, I know where this line of questioning will lead to only too well. 

"He learned of your capture...." 

"How?" she asks again. She reaches out with imploring fingers, touching my sleeve. I go still at that, gazing down at that small hand gripping my muscled arm. 

Defeated, I sigh, the familiar words then pouring out of me. "Your father's life is in danger." I don't have to look at her face to see the effect such words will have on her. Not when I already know, having seen it countless times before, the confusion giving way to horror and then to something else. "He's being attacked by the very same monster that stole you away from your family in the first place." 

"Rum...Rumplestiltskin?" She asks with a disbelieving giggle. 

"He must be stopped." I close my eyes, and fight against the despair that darkens my very soul. "You spent more time with him than anyone else. There are rumors of a magical weapon...that has the power to kill him...." 

"No, no, no. Let me talk to him." She says. "He's not a monster." 

I know it won't matter, that my words won't change the outcome of what has already happened. And still I try, my eyes snapping open with a desperate gleam to them. With every word spoken, I in turn silently beg her to believe me, to buy into what I am saying. 

"Your father's life hangs in the balance. I need to know what that weapon is and where to find it..." 

She looks at me, all worry and confusion, innocently stammering that she knows of no such weapon. 

"You don't?" 

"No!" She exclaims, and I again close my eyes. "And even if I did, I wouldn't...I would never..." 

"Then I am afraid I am NOT here to rescue you." 

"Yo...you're not..." She states, that beautiful woman having already read the truth of it on my face. I hear her inhale to scream, feel her hands shove at me to knock me off balance, and for one second I actually consider letting her get away. But my arms move automatically, one catching around her waist. I haul her screaming form back against me, feel her thrash out long, supple legs in an attempt to be difficult. The sharp, pointed tip of my hook to her throat steals the worst of her fight, the woman sagging defeated in my embrace. 

"I'm sorry." I whisper it against her hair, shift my hook to fit it's curve around her throat. With the firm, unyielding pressure of it, she tilts her head back at an awkward angle. Frightened, but defiant eyes stare up at me, and I am lost, drowning in the blue of them. I don't even have to think on what to do next, I just act, my mouth forcefully covering hers. 

She makes a sound, a fierce whine of protest, both of her hands coming up to grab at my arm. I allow her that much, feel the dig of her fingers into the leather sleeve of my coat. She's trying to hurt me, but the beauty might as well be scratching over iron for all the damage that her nails do against my leather clad arm. She lets out another cry, an infuriated sounding hiss that is accompanied by more of her body's futile struggling. 

She tries to twist out from beneath my kiss. The back of her body rubs across my front, the sensation of it setting my nerve endings on fire with a surging spike of arousal. She FEELS it, and actively tries to leap forward, but I haul her back. I do more than just pull her against me, I thrust my hips forward, let my erection press into the soft pleasing flesh of her. It's then that she gasps into my mouth, frightened by my blatant desire, by the pleasured groan that is let loose deep in my throat. This time when she makes a sound, it is a soft, frightened whimper, and I devour THAT too. 

She whimpers again and tries to hold still, her head still held at that awkward angle for my kiss. I'm all force and determined heat, my mouth harsh with it's demand. I steal closer with every sound that she makes, my mouth relentless, almost brutal, my tongue plundering inside. Her knees buckle in response, her fingernails becoming more desperate. A high pitch whine accompanies those clawing movements, the words she tries to beg for mercy with, muffled under the dark greedy pressure of my lips. 

But it's not enough. It's NEVER enough. Not when I am burning, lust boiling my blood, and clouding all sane thought. Around me, the dream has gone to hell, the nightmare making itself known in the frightened blue of her eyes. Then she's screaming, fighting more wildly, more desperately as I drag her back into the cell. By the time I push her down onto the cot, she is a trembling mess, tears streaking across her face. Her lower lip is trembling as she glares up at me, all tearful and afraid. 

"Don't do this." She begs in a broken tone of voice. I give her a sad sort of smile, cup her cheek with my good hand. 

"If only you had trusted me..." But I wonder if her trust would have been enough to keep the nightmare at bay. Maybe nothing could. Maybe I was forever doomed to this torture, to this madness, haunted by a memory of fear stricken eyes and endlessly tempted by the remembered feel of her soft, pale flesh. 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

To Be Continued...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huh..I had wanted this chapter to be longer, but it just felt like I had reached the end..I know it's short, but I already have an opening line for two in my head. But it could also be I am feeling so rusty and feel like all my attempts at sexual things sucks. Please note the first 13 KB was written back in MARCH. Yes March 2016. Interesting story. Last night I was looking through my Once folder, and I have a lot of little files with notes and half formed ideas that I have never written out in story form. Well imagine my shock when I came across a note file, and a 13 KB chapter work in progress! Thank God for that note file, as it reminded me what I was trying to do with this first chapter, AND told me what story I had been aiming to tell...I'm not sure why I left the chapter half unfinished back then....it got written all the way up to the part where her knees buckled, and then stopped mid sentence. But I had completely forgotten about this idea and it's existence... 
> 
> I may try to work on two tonight...I may not. I just feel like I have lost my ability to write anything sexual, sensual, and or smutty. *Cries* Right now I am in a kinda weird limbo, where I am moving from idea to idea, trying to get my groove back. I have a lot of ideas, it's just translating them into written word that has been giving me trouble this month. *Sad frustrated fact* 
> 
> I guess I should put some warnings here...this is dark Hook, and will probably go non con. I mean non con beyond this dream slash nightmare slash distorted memory he is having in chapter one. And there will probably be character death, thought not of Hook or of Belle. But yeah some warnings so you can make up your mind if you want to continue with this. But I hope you still do! 
> 
> I did first person POV...I hope it won't prove too draining on me to maintain a dark fic like this. Planning to do both Hook and Belle first person POV to narrate the story as it happens. Better summary will hopefully come to me...probably need a better title too, but for now I'll name this what my file was named. "Not here for the books" 
> 
> \------------Michelle


	2. Two

With a feral shout, I jerk awake. I'm then shaking, staring about the room with eyes that aren't seeing my surrounding for what they really are. Instead, I'm still half back in the tower, in that room, and SHE'S there with me, all a tremble and afraid. It's exactly like I remember, and yet it's not, her dress torn open by my hook. All that beautiful, pale skin is on display as a result, the woman's stomach quivering, her breasts heaving with every panicked breath. But it's MY tortured groan that sounds, my eyes closing against the sight. 

The visual remains with me even then, taunting me with what I don't have. I snarl then, a furious, livid sound. 

"Get a hold of yourself!" 

But it's never that easy. Not with the fever running through me, the desire that spreads with it setting my skin on fire. I'm burning up, and every nerve inside me is wound tight and getting tighter. I'm ready to explode, the dream itself leaving me as unsatisfied as ever. She's all I can think of, all I want in the moment, my good hand jerking back the sheet that covers me. The slight breeze from that violent motion only sends shivers through my naked body, my cock standing at attention. My need throbs more strongly with it, my gut cramping from the ache that is ricocheting through me. 

My fingers curl and dig their nail's tips into my palm. With a defeated sound, I fall back against the bed's pillows, throwing my arm up over my face. I can't block her out, can't stop the visual or the desire, my hand grabbing rough hold of my dick. I hiss through my clenched teeth, feel how violently my body is yearning. It won't take much more than this to bring me over, my hand moving. 

That frantic movement tears a curse from my lips, my moans more snarls than anything else. I barely recognize that noise as my voice, or that hoarse animalistic sound that reverberates deep from within my chest. My body winds tighter with the frenzied movement of my hand, the pressure building, and I am screaming, hips jerking back just as I erupt. I feel the seed jettison from me, thick gooey spurts of it splattering against my skin. 

The self loathing hits me just as soon as I can get my breathing back under control. It thrusts me into a misery of my own making, the memory of tearful blue eyes the only thing that is left lingering from the dream--the NIGHTMARE that I have endured for some twenty eight years. It's not just when I close my eyes, I see it all the time. I think about it, about her, about the mistakes I have made, the sins I have knowingly wrought and I can't change a damn thing. Not even in my dreams, no matter how hard I try, my heart knows it can't be so easily fixed. 

Maybe it can never. Maybe something so precious once broken is completely past repair. Maybe I've ruined it, ruined her, with my thoughtless actions. And maybe that is why I've been so scared to act, unable to move forward, unwilling to break free from the memory of HER that haunts me so. 

I lay there and sigh, the breath that escapes me a sad, weighted down sound. Those beautiful blue eyes that had been so hurt and afraid, stare in accusation before me. I mutter a curse, and softer yet is my whispered sorry, but I don't know just who I am apologizing to. Her, or me? Maybe the both of us, for what I have cost us, for what I have damaged before I had properly understood. 

I scream then, angry. With myself, with the world, with fate for her twisted sense of humor. For dangling before me my one chance at salvation, then leaving me too blinded by my revenge to realize it in time. With this hand and this hook, with this body, I had made the choice. And I had regretted it ever since. 

That hurt, accusing stare torments me so. It makes me flinch, but I cannot escape it. It or the regret, or the hot, reality of my ever present lust. She's in my blood as much as in my head, the memory of her taste, of the feel of her, making me shake with my need. I'm torn between that greedy want and the wrongness of my desire, the evil voice that whispers in my head, that orders me to find her and do it again. 

"She's YOURS." It hisses, trying to seduce me when I've already lost. I shake my head against the voice, against the desire that stirs still, even with the sticky remains of my come on my skin. 

"Yours!" It repeats, and I make a fist. But there's no tangible presence to be found, no foe to battle but myself. I'm as alone as I've ever been, some three hundred year ache inside me, that the disgust and self loathing cannot hope to ever fill. Nothing can, save her, and the chance of her is already lost. 

"Shit." I growl, and force myself up out of the bed. I'm so angry, I can only see red when I look at my reflection. I thought I had known hate, thought I had known all reason to despise a person. But now I know better. There's no one to be as despised and maligned as much as I, this man, this pirate, who had found and thrown away his chance at true love. My heart already so broken, shatters even more as I glare at my reflection. And then I am punching it, trying to destroy the person I see before me, my hand breaking the mirror, splintering it into a hundred different shards of glass. 

With a bloodied hand, and a dozen reflections glaring back at me still, I howl and run into the bathroom. There's no mirrors here, but I can't escape the voice, or the accusations my own heart throws at me. With a stone face expression, I set to getting clean, set to tending to and bandaging up my hand. But there's no tending to the ache inside me, no way to fix what I have set wrong. So I don't even try, and hate myself all the more for it, snarling under my breath about what a coward I am. 

I'm still snarling insults at myself long after I've gotten dressed. Still trying to drown out that persistent and evil voice. I wallow and welcome the self loathing as my penance, hold the memory of her eyes at their saddest and most hurt, and pronounce myself a monster that is worse than the Dark One. I don't even try to blame him for what I have wrought, blinded by revenge though I had been. No one is to be as reviled and blamed as I, the man who hadn't been able to recognize his own soul’s mate until after it was too late. 

Anger on my face, murder in my eyes, I can barely control myself as I step into the bowels of the ship. The cricket imprisoned there, is frightened long before he sees my face, crying out in a whimpering tone, his chains clanking together as the man fights against them to avoid me. I haven't even touched him, and already he is panicking, twisting in place, his eyes open one minute, then closed shut the next. As though the man cannot make up his mind on which is more terrifying. To see what I will do, or to blind himself to the sight of my approaching hook. 

"Wait!" He is squealing in between desperate panting gasps. "Wait! Please don't, don't! Please don't hurt me!" He is screaming by this point, cringing back, and shaking violently as my hand forcefully muffles his shouts. 

"Shhhhh!" I am right in his space, as I breathe out that sound. I keep my hand pressed over his mouth and nose, forcing him to control his breathing or else suffocate. "As your patient..." I hiss it out casually, as though this is a normal, every day conversation and situation. "The Dark One must have told you all manner of secrets." I don't quite smile as I slowly uncover his mouth. At the first sign of a scream, I am prepared to hurt him, and I let the knowledge of that show in my eyes. "WHERE is his dagger?" 

His confusion beats back a lot of his panic, the man staring up at me. " I don't know ANYTHING about a dagger!" 

The truth of that shines in his eyes, the man's stare never wavering, never losing the clear confusion that he feels. He truly knows nothing about what I am asking, and no amount of menace and danger is going to change that bit of fact. 

I still glower though, my frustration clenching at my jaw. "No...no you don't, do you?" A growl then, I'm so very angry with this waste of my time. I take a step back, actually sit down, the fingers of my good hand, stroking at my stubble covered chin. The cricket warily watches me as I do all this, but he doesn't dare let hope spark in his eyes. 

"It's his weakness." I explain. I sound tired even to myself, so defeated in the moment. I don't even dare hope, even as I ask another question, not expecting much of an answer. "Now...maybe does he have any others?" 

He's started struggling again, twisting and turning, testing the chains for any weakness of their own. But I saw the hesitation just before he had started his fitful movements. The man does know something, something so important that it keeps him from even looking at me. A slow smirk spreads across my face, and then I am lurching forward, the stool that I had sat upon falling over from the speed of my movements. "Very well." I grab him with my good hand, hold him steady by what little hair he does have left, and put the sharp tip of my hook to his temple. I smile even more, my voice a satisfied whisper. "I've always wanted to dissect a cricket." 

"NO!" The man screams, even as the tip just grazes pressure against his skin. I haven't even bled him, and already he is singing. "No wait! Wait!" He's totally panicking, desperate to be spared. "Please..." 

It's not that the press of my hook against his skin has jogged his memory, so much as the fear of it has loosened his tongue. I can see from his expression that he's ready to chirp out all the Dark One's secrets, each and every one that he has been privy to. Another satisfied breath leaves me, the grin a taunting victory on my lips. "Ahh...that's more like it...." My voice then turns harsh, my hook dragging it's threat across the man's skin. "Now tell me cricket. WHAT is his weakness?" 

All the color drains out of my face at the name that the cricket screams out. "Belle! Her name is Belle!" 

"Belle?" I growl furiously, doing a rough jerk on his hair. He screams and thrashes about, and before I can stop him, he is telling me everything, including where I might find her. I scream at him to shut up, but he carries on as though I haven't said a word, telling me more than I could have ever wanted to know. I can't stop myself from listening, from taking in the words, from letting a picture be painted in my head. Of her, her beautiful eyes, and that pale skin framed by the torn threads of her ruined dress. 

I shake my head, but it's too late. The cricket's words have found root deep inside me. Belle is here, just as I had always suspected she would be. And now that I knew WHERE she could be found, there would be no stopping me. I scream again, and punch the cricket hard. I want to do more than just punch him, I want to KILL him for what he's told me. For the danger he's put her in, Belle safe so long as I had kept myself ignorant of just where she was in this accursed town. 

But now I know and it's all I can do to not go to her immediately. The voice that screams inside me, that boils over with the knowledge that she is MINE, balks at any delay. It doesn't want to understand that I need time to think, to plan, to try and figure out what I am going to do. I don't want to hurt her, and yet how can I not? Especially when I've done it before. Not once, not twice, but a million times over in my dreams? For twenty eight years I have been cursed, unable to change the past sin I relive nightly. Unable to forgive myself, and unable to keep from wanting her again and again, how can I ever expect Belle to show me even an ounce of understanding? 

She can't. Just as I can not stay away. I pace about my ship, my hand scrubbing over my face, as I worry and try to fight this need, this desire that compels me to abandon everything else, even my revenge against the Dark One and just go take Belle for myself. I drag my feet, and still find myself at the topmost deck of my ship, and from there it's all too easy to leap over the side. But it's not to the cold waters of the harbor I go, my feet instead landing planted firmly on the dock's pier. I damn myself for every step forward I then take, and fight against the desire goading me on, trying in vain to drown out the voice snarling in my head. It’s a voice that won't be appeased, refusing my attempts to calm it before I have even seen her. 

I pray it can be satisfied with just a quick look, but in my head and in my heart, I know that it won't be. Nor will I, not after twenty eight accursed years of reliving that night, that memory, in a vivid detail that still pales in comparison to the real thing. The thought of it, of the real her in my arms once more where she belongs? It makes me clumsy, almost careless, hurrying through the busy streets that make up the main thoroughfare of the town. I start shoving people aside when the building with the clock tower is in view, that structure unmistakable from the description that the cricket had given me. The books that I spy through the closed window only further confirm this as the right place, and with no guards posted, and only a flimsy lock to try and stop me, I let myself into her domain. 

It's empty, just like the cricket had said it would be. I could kill him for that knowledge, for how quick he had been to betray Belle to such danger. And the fact that he had done it to save his own miserable hide? It didn't redeem the cricket at all in my eyes. He's not one to be trusted, and he might not be worth sparing. But then neither am I. 

With a disparaging sound, I try to shake myself free of such thoughts. But that only leaves room for other, more troubling thoughts to take shape. Dozens upon dozens of what ifs play through my mind, and it's not all limited to that nightmarish memory from twenty eight years ago. New visions torment me, new horrors chase me to the back of the room. But I don't once try to leave now that I am here. Instead I pick out a book, a random novel I have no hope of reading. The words of this realm are as foreign to me as it's land, and I have to settle with looking at pictures in an attempt to distract myself from my real purpose here. It never once works, even after I have settled in place for a good few hours. 

When I hear the unlocking of the door, I nearly drop the book. It takes all my strength of will not to do something even stupider. I want to run to her, but instead I make myself remain right where I am. I actually hold my breath, listening to her footsteps, and the soft murmur of her voice as she mutters things to herself. I hear the rustle of paper, hear her shifting things about. And finally I hear the sounds of her approach, the woman pausing every few seconds to do something with the books and their shelves. 

So busy is she with tending to the books, Belle doesn't immediately notice me when she turns the corner. I stare at her out the corner of my eye, but pretend to keep focused on the book. I hold myself absolutely still, but still must make a sound that she then responds to. 

"Sorry." Belle says, a book held in her hand. "The library's not open yet." There's an apologetic smile on her sweet lips, the woman starting to look up. She then does a double take, even as I am already closing the book, and locking eyes with her. 

"Oh..." I can't stop my voice from sounding like a husky menace. Anymore than I can stop the smirk from twisting my features. "I'm not here for the books, love." 

Without either one of us breaking eye contact, I stick the picture book back on a random shelf. The color is quick to drain from her face, the woman starting to visibly tremble. There's not much space between us, just the span of one of the bookcases. She remains on her side of it, her shaking fingers barely able to hold onto the book in her grasp. 

"You." She manages to get out as the book drops to the floor. "You're the one who broke into my cell at the Queen's palace." She doesn't say anymore than that, Belle already taking off running. I don't have time to examine the conflicting feelings inside of me, any elation I could have felt at seeing her gone to the despair of just how badly she fears me. But worse than the despair is the anger, at her and at me, and I'm running after her, desperate to catch her, to stop her from leaving and to stop the mad voice that is screaming in my head. 

Her fear makes her fast, but not as fast as my desperation makes me. I know if she is to make it outside, I will never again see her. The Dark One will make sure of it, and that is something I cannot allow to happen. I just manage to skid to a halt before her, a smaller book case standing between us. She stops up short with a frightened gasp, staring at me all wild eyed with her alarm. 

"You...you wanted to kill Rumplestiltskin!" Of all the things she could have said, of all the fears Belle could have expressed, a concern for that monster is the last I'd have expected. Without even thinking, I snarl, my gaze as dark and jealous as my thoughts now are. 

"Oh I still do." I promised her. "But right now, I'll more than settle for you." 

I can see how panicked she is in turn by that, how Belle wonders just what I mean by that. Her breathing becomes erratic, her eyes wild and darting, and then she is shoving the book case over at me. It takes me by surprise, the shelves and the books crashing against my body, and I fall over. Enough time for her to turn, to try and get away, and then I am screaming her name, incensed beyond all measure. 

"BELLE!" 

Even that sound holds the promise of a threat to it, my hand and my hook angry as I bat away books, and shove aside the bookcase. I think there's no real place for her to go, and then snarl when I notice the doors she is impatiently waiting on to open. Huge, heavy things, with gears that take forever to turn, they are the only reason why she isn't already gone, the woman trying to lunge forward as soon as the space is wide enough. I lunge as well, nearly falling in the process, but my hand and my hook catch around her, hauling Belle back as she lets loose with an ear splitting scream. 

I'm still so furious I can barely think straight, holding her to me, with my hand covering her mouth. With her panicked screams muffled, she tries her best to squirm free. I growl in response, and haul her more firmly against me, burying my nose into her vanilla scented hair, as I try to take deep calming breaths. 

"That's it, love." I whisper it encouragingly into her ear, when I noticed her struggles have all but stopped. "Settle down and we'll get along just fine." A broken sob is my answer, one that tears at what is left of my heart, but I merely band my arms tighter around her rather than let go. 

I don't try to do more than that, for now content to merely bask in the feel of her. The voice in my head hasn't gone quiet, it's shouting suggestions on just how I can get her back to my ship and in my bed, before the day is up. I try to ignore it, but it does raise a good point. It's too risky to just stick around here, waiting on night to fall. The sooner I can get her back to my ship, the better, and until that happens, talking and OTHER things will just have to wait. 

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

To Be Continued....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was an on and off struggle....Not too thrilled with the ending. Am pretty sure it's gonna be a Belle narrative next time...Ideally I want to backtrack to show an important to the story, scene between her and Rumplestiltskin. But we'll see if I get to write it out the way it currently exists in my head. I might just get frustrated, and stick with another Hook POV. 
> 
> Humm...not much to say this time around. I'm hungry and eager to get this spellchecked and proofread.... 
> 
> \----Michelle


	3. Three

It is such a beautiful day. With a kind of light, airy weather that is none too cold and none too hot. The sun practically sparkles in the sky, and what little clouds that are seen, are lazy fat lumps of pure white. There's no sign of it turning overcast, no storm to threaten on the horizon. And yet nearly every last one of us, is holding an umbrella. Not expecting so much as demanding it rain, on this, a very sad and mournful a day. 

It never would rain. Even as more than one person cast a questioning look up at the sky, the sun brilliance remained, gifting us with an early spring like day that was so out of season for this time of year. I heard more than one voice whisper about the shame of it all, the wrongness we all felt to be burying a good man, a loved man, on such a beautiful day. But the tragedy wouldn't have lessened, even if the rain had joined our tears. A man, a friend, had been taken from us, far too soon, and far too brutally for even the worst weather to make it okay in our hearts. 

More than one person was openly weeping. Our hearts were breaking, stunned by our loss, by the unexpectedness and the violence of it. That violence left us all shaking, fearing and wondering just who would be next, and when, our somewhat happy lives thrust into a nightmare of pure evil's making. Far too familiar with it--with HER and her threat, a return to the old ways was a thought that lay heavy in many a mind. I was no different, remembering what she had cost me, remembering my captivity, and the things that had happened there. A shudder goes through me, it's all I can do to fight back the memories, to not lose myself to blue eyes that had been blazing. 

It's not easy. A shadowy figure lurks in the corner of my vision, but I force myself not to react. To not even gasp. I know he cannot be here, that he exists as merely a figment of my stressed and frightened imagination. But knowing that doesn't make what has happened any easier, nor does it free me from my fears, from the power that the memories have on me. I curl my finger's tight on the umbrella grasped in my hands, and stare stoically ahead, trying to concentrate on the woman who is speaking. She stands closest to the grave, dressed in a black that matches the color of her short cropped hair. 

She is lovely, even in her sadness, her eyes rimmed with red, the woman fighting back tears. The loss has hit her hardest of all, the woman, Mary Margaret, surely blaming herself for the man's death. For his death, and for all that has happened to the people here, and for all that may yet happen. She doesn't understand that that one wrong choice of hers, did not justify the queen's own wrong doings. Of which there was many, the murder of the man we came to bury just the latest in a long line of innumerable crimes the queen has committed. 

Countless lives ruined, and our happy endings stolen, I think we all felt a fool now, to have dared believe that such evil could change it's ways. Because it won't, and it can't, that evil a poison that has turned Regina's heart black. There is no cure, no help or hope for her, and most times it feels there is none for us either. Not with all we've suffered at her hands, the tortures we've all endured, both as a community and as individuals. Everyone has a story, everyone a reason for fearing her, even for hating her. But that's not why we are here, as Mary Margaret's words remind me. 

"Some of us knew him as Archie..." She says with a sad smile that is also the bravest expression the woman can manage in the moment. "Others as Jiminy....." I hear a loud sniffle, watch as the boy, the savior's son Henry, turn to and hug his mother for comfort. More than a few eyes moisten at that, and I find myself dabbing at my eyes with a silk cloth handkerchief embroidered with a large, cursive R. 

"But.." Her voice wavers, as though a sob threatens to break her completely. "But we all knew him as a true friend." Mary Margaret is blinking back tears, the rapid motion of her eyes staying the worst of them as she tries to maintain her smile. Her husband approaches, actually puts a supportive arm around her, which she touches with her own hand. 

"And know..." Her voice is now accompanied by the sad whining of a dog. Pongo, a beautiful black and white dalmatian, strains at his leash, his voice making a sad eulogy of it's own as the dog mourns the man who had been his beloved master. 

"And know.." Mary Margaret tries again. "That though he may be gone, he will always live on inside of us." Her smile, sad as it is, is also genuine, the woman continuing to speak from a heart that is a mirror of what ours are feeling. "He'll be here.." She taps her hand over her heart. "Reminding us to be our best. To do the right thing, and to always fight for what we believe in." 

More than a few heads are nodding, and somewhere from behind me, a man's voice whispers about justice, for Archie, and for us all. There's more than a few murmurs of agreement, and a loud hiss from Granny for quiet, that nearly drowns out the end of what Mary Margaret is saying. 

"So we shouldn't think of today as goodbye." She says. "Instead, we should think of it as way of saying Archie, we'll be listening." She bows her head in sad respect, then reaches out to place a gentle hand atop the tombstone. It stands at the foot of an already covered grave, one which we walk by carefully, so that each and every one of us can pay our private respects. 

Gepetto is the last to approach the grave, the older man kneeling down carefully in the dirt. He grips the tombstone with one hand, and stares at the inscription. For the longest time he doesn't speak, and finally, when he does, it's a whisper meant only for his and Archie's ears. 

Granny and I wait with Ruby, the three of us huddled together in our grief. We don't say much, aside from a hushed whisper of how much Archie will be missed. Gepetto takes his time, and when I glance his way, I see that the man is rubbing a hand over his face, trying to hide the fact that he is crying for his lost friend. Even then we do not intrude, simply waiting, silent and patient before Gepetto at last turns to join our small group. Together, the four of us walk to the sole remaining car. Ruby sits behind the wheel, with Granny as her passenger. Gepetto and I take seats in the back, and we drive off in silence. 

It's a silence that only lasts a few minutes at best, as Ruby softly wonders just what kind of justice can be found. Granny turns angry at that, and huffs indignantly that the only justice we should expect, is that of the evil queen's head on a platter. She then turns red with embarrassment when Gepetto softly admonishes her. 

"That's not what Archie would want." 

"Yes but..." But what Archie would want, won't be enough to keep this town safe, is the unspoken thought in all our heads. I've no doubt a mob justice is coming, and I don't know who I feel more for. The people who will endanger themselves to go after Regina, or for Archie, who would have been so disappointed in us for even considering hurting Regina. 

"He wanted to save her." I whisper softly. Ruby catches my gaze in the rearview mirror when Granny scoffs in response. "It's why he continued to see her. It's why he believed in giving her a chance to be her best." 

"It's exactly that that got him killed!" Granny mutters. I'm not sure what to say to that, and I glance nervously at Gepetto besides me. 

"You were....are his best friend." I say. "Shouldn't we honor his memory, and try to..to...." 

Ruby's hands tighten on the wheel. "You're not suggesting we spare her? Belle, honey, she's not worth it. Not everyone deserves saving...." 

"She may be beyond help...." 

"MAY be?!" Granny snorts. 

"But we shouldn't darken our own hearts over her." 

"She won't stop." Ruby insists. "Not until more lives are ruined, and enough people are dead to finally satisfy her twisted need for revenge." 

"A lot of people will end up dead whether we do something or not." Granny points out. "Archie is proof of that." 

That's not something I can argue. Our friend Archie had been the type of person who wouldn't have harmed a fly. He had always been trying to help, and always believing in a person's best, Archie had tried to be friend and confidante to the Evil Queen. And still had ended up dead. If she could kill such an innocent soul, it meant there truly was no one safe from Regina and her reign of terror. 

"What about the Dark One?" Ruby's question has me jerking my gaze in her direction. "Can't we....I don't know, make a deal with him to neutralize Regina and her powers?" 

"A deal? With that monster?!" Granny is hardly sorry for what she says. 

"I doubt we have anything he could want to trade for anyway...." Gepetto murmurs. 

"How do you figure that?" Ruby asks. 

"He wasn't at the funeral or at the burial." Gepetto explanation makes Granny snarl. 

"He wouldn't have been welcomed if he had dared shown up!" 

"He still would have shown, regardless of his welcome or lack of it, so long we had anything worth it to him to make a deal for." Gepetto insisted. 

I start to shift in my seat, uncomfortable with the conversation and the turns it is taking. Ruby seems to pick up on my unease, my name a question at the end of her tongue. 

"Belle?" 

"It's nothing." I say. "I'm just tired." But I'm not being entire truthful, gazing out the window now, and thinking to the real reason why the Dark One, Rumplestiltskin, had not put in an appearance at Archie's funeral. The reason why came in the form of a phone call late in the middle of the night, Rumplestiltskin all but ordering me to come to his shop first thing for the next morning. That he wouldn't tell me why over the phone, had led to a near sleepless night, and me on his shop's doorstep as early as six am. 

The door had already been unlocked when I had tried it, but there had been no one inside it. That was not that unusual. Most people avoided Rumplestiltskin, and by default his shop. In the three months since the curse had been broken, I could count on only one hand, the number of time I had seen Rumplestiltskin have visitors. Only the most desperate would dare visit him, and even then, those desperate few would have thought twice about all their OTHER options first. 

It should have been eery to be inside that empty store. Instead I had never felt safer, surrounded by his things and his magic, and knowing nothing and no one would be able to hurt me so long as I was there. It's why I hadn't startled too badly when he had stepped into the room, an excited gleam already in his eyes. That gleam though had made me wary, even as I had reminded myself that this was Rumple, and that he would never try to hurt me, and never in THAT way. 

"Hey." I had said by way of greeting, trying to calm myself and the quick frightened beat of my heart. "What has happened?" I would then ask, but I was hardly in a rush to draw near to him. If Rumplestiltskin had sensed my unease, he did not show it, instead stepping over to stand behind a counter. I had felt better to have something between us, for the space it had forced him to maintain.

"Now, tell me what is so wrong that you couldn't speak of it over the phone?" 

His self satisfied smirk had made a shiver roll through me. I don't think I had ever seen Rumple like this, so satisfied and eager. His excitement had practically pulsated off him, and it had most definitely sent alarm bells ringing in my head that had drawn me up short of the counter's reach. 

"I did it." He had said, his smirk deepening. He had leaned forward over the counter, as though in response to my maintaining my distance. "I can LEAVE." 

I hadn't been able to stop the relief from going through me, my mouth dropping open in shock. "You can cross the town line?!" 

His grin no longer had made me so uneasy, not now that I had understood the reason for the pleasure behind it. 

"Indeed I can!" He'd say, and I'd grant him a rare, genuine smile. I had truly been happy for him, for what he had accomplished, and for what it would lead to. That expression of mine would soften the look in his eyes, the man almost gentle as he had reached towards a case, that had held several small viles. With purpose, he would take hold of one in particular, a very small amount of warm blue liquid sloshing about inside the thin glass vial. 

"When I pour THIS potion..." Rumplestiltskin had said, holding the vial up so that it had caught at the shop's light. "Onto the object that I hold most dear...." The liquid had shone a dazzling, vibrant blue in response to the light's touch upon it. "That object will then become a talisman that will allow me to cross the town line, and still remember who I truly am." 

He had followed up his explanation, by carefully securing the vial into a black bag satchel. I hadn't been able to stop smiling, nearly laughing when I had excitedly reminded him of yet another important aspect of this talisman that he was soon to create. "And you'll remember just who it is you are looking for! 

His smile had been soft then, his tone the most reverent I had ever been privilege to hear. "My boy." It had moved something inside me, my own heart warmed by his gentle excitement. I had actually closed the distance between us, had actually nerved myself to touch him, one of my hands laying atop his across the satchel. 

"What..." Touching him hadn't been able to stop me from nervously stammering in response. "What will you enchant?" 

"Well.." He had lingered a moment, as though Rumplestiltskin had been savoring the feel of a touch I didn't often give him, give anyone. But there had been no hesitation in what he had said, the answer to my asked question, one he hadn't needn't to think about, even for one second. 

"I'll do it with this." He had said, and had visibly forced himself to move away from me. For one second I had marveled at my own self, at my bravery in having touched someone, but Rumplestiltskin's continued actions had drawn my attention back to the here and now. I would watch as he had turned towards one of the many framed pictures on the wall behind the shop's counter. He hadn't even hesitated, revealing to me yet another secret that few if any in the town would ever be privy to. 

The safe had been exposed and then opened, and inside it lay one of his most valuable, his most precious of objects. It had been as simple length of yellow wool, and had been old and frayed at the very edges. Rumplestiltskin had handled it as though it was the most fragile of glass, gentle spreading the fabric across the counter top. 

"This shawl." He would say, his hands continuing to touch and caress the wool fabric. "It's all I have left of my Baelfire...." 

I had risked a touch of the shawl, feeling the slightly coarse fabric against my skin. I had still been smiling, but something inside me had felt very close to tears. Because I had been in the process of realizing he was leaving, and without him, I wouldn't feel even a quarter of safe in this town. 

I had tried not to visibly shudder, my gaze having lowered to stare at the shawl. I would grow bolder, openly caressing it with my nervous fingers, my teeth worrying at my bottom lip. In a few seconds time, I would reach a decision, my own voice coming out hesitant but hopeful, as I had nervously offered up a suggestion of my own. 

"And....and I suppose...I couldn't come with you?" I had glanced up at him then, not so much as hope in my eyes, but a downright pleading look that had probably read as desperate even to him. 

The question I would sometimes read in his eyes, had appeared then. It was a question he had never outright asked me, a question I had never offered up a true answer to. He had looked at me then, and I had seen the worried concern, the man once again wondering in his head, just what I had been through to have transformed me into this frightened, desperate woman. 

"Ah...ah.." He would say, actually setting aside the shawl, to come around to my side of the counter. "I truly wish that you could.." His tone was sad and apologetic, his eyes had shown with a desperate gleam, the man wanting me to understand and not hate him for this. "But...I only have enough of that potion to enchant ONE object." 

I hadn't been able to hide my disappointment. Even though I had already known I wouldn't have been able to go with him. 

"Hey." He had said in response to my sad look. For one second I had thought he had meant to embrace me, but Rumplestiltskin had stopped short of that, instead placing one of his hands over his heart. "This is my journey, Belle." He had told me. "And I am afraid it is something I have to do ALONE." 

I had put on my best and bravest of smiles, even as I had blinked back tears. "I know." I had said. "You need to do what is best for you and your boy...." 

"I...WE won't be gone for forever." He had then reassured me. "As soon as I find Bae, I will be back. You'll get to meet him. We'll get to be a family." 

"A family.." I had echoed his words back at him, then shook my head. "When do you leave?" I had then asked. 

"Tonight." He had said in answer. 

"Tonight?" I had repeated, and dread had filled my heart. "So soon?" I had immediately felt foolish. Rumplestiltskin had waited several lifetimes to reunite with his lost son. Of course he wouldn't put it off any longer than necessary. 

"I'm sorry..." I had then rushed to say. "Of course...of course, tonight." But inside my stomach had been turning with unease, gut cramping in protest, as my heart had cried out for him to not go. To not leave me alone in this town. Alone and unprotected, and at the mercy of his enemies, his and mine. 

But I had voiced none of my fears. Not even to stop him, not even to comfort my own troubled soul. I had to LET him leave, to do otherwise would have been the utmost in selfish. And I couldn't be that. 

Two days had passed since that morning in his shop. Two days and already I was jumping at shadows, both real and imagined. If anyone had noticed how much more on edge I now seemed to be, they had chosen to not comment. And I was grateful for that discretion. They weren't the only ones to be discrete. I had told no one of Rumple's trip, not even Ruby, who I considered my dearest of friends. It felt safer that way, as if the less people who knew, the longer I could stave off an attack against me. 

Maybe it was paranoid. But then, I had a right to be, given all that has happened to me. I've been a victim, and not just of Regina's. My expression that I see reflected in the car's window, is dark now to match my thoughts. It's better than the pain, though I feel that too, stabbing deep in my heart. In a wound that's never healed, that's never had the time to try. My fingers curl on my lap, the nails digging into my skin. The shadows in my vision's corner seem to move suddenly, and not for the first time since the breaking of the Dark Curse, do I long for the sweet oblivion of it. 

But forgetting is not really an option for me. I know that. Just as I know I have to work through it, in order to heal. Maybe then I'll stop seeing shadows, shying away from most touch. 

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To Be Continued...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah...told you I had to do some backtracking in the Belle POV. Important info to the story in the Rumple Belle scene. Chapter was delayed in part cause I had a bad headache yesterday, but also I was stumped on how to present the info I wanted to show. Glad I figured it out, but am not sure I did a good enough job. Also worried everyone will be bored by this chapter...I thought I would get this advanced to when she sees him in the library, but I guess we have to wait for chapter four for that. It just felt like I reached an ending point for this particular chapter. If you're wondering, the funeral and burial all took place the morning of Hook waiting for her in the library. My plan is they get back to town, and go there separate ways. Granny and Ruby to the diner, Gepetto to wherever, and Belle to the library. 
> 
> Oh yeah! I am also wondering if there WON'T Be character death in this after all. Just cause I worried it would lead to something too similar to something I haven't written as happening yet in a different Hook Belle story of mine. So I am kinda trying to decide what to do instead, in regards to that thing I had originally intended to happen...don't want to say what it is, cause I don't want to spoil what happens in the other story. So shhhhh! It's a secret! Hopefully one day I will be able to reveal it. 
> 
> Still feel rusty at writing.....feel like I didn't do the Belle POV justice...but she's trying to stay focused on the here and now....but hopefully for next chapter I can dig deep inside her for feelings and memories and what not! 
> 
> Laters! 
> 
> \---Michelle


	4. Four

There are times when it hits me harder than most, at just how big and crowded a town Storybrooke truly is. With all manner of person and creature somehow fitting into it's confines, every corner of every kingdom established here in some form or another. From hero to villain, and everyone in between, there doesn't seem as though many have had a chance to escape the Dark Curse that had brought us all here. 

Our lives disrupted by it, changed by it, these last three months have been an especially chaotic and confusing a time. Our memories all a jumble with both the lives that we had lived, and the lives that we had lost, our friends, our families, everything was a mess. Lines had been blurred, whole families changed. For twenty eight years we had each been living a lie, the false lives that the Evil Queen had cursed us with, and yet the truth itself couldn't lessen the sting. How could it ever even hope to, what with the new bonds that had formed, that had been actively forced on us throughout the duration of the curse? 

Whole families had been torn apart, the curse's reality conflicting with what was true. Lovers had been split apart, loyalties left confused. The dynamic between relationships, between husbands and wives, children and parents, neighbor and king, all damaged and distorted to the point that a sorting out seemed all but impossible to do. Our happy endings were still stolen, our chance at them complicated beyond measure, there were times when I felt it might have ben less heartbreak for the curse to have remained. 

Certainly I feel it would have been easier on ME. Of all the things the curse had stolen, my freedom still seemed a small price to pay for the memories and nightmares I have since been reliving. The shadows that haunt me even now, make me long selfishly to go back to the woman who had forgotten, to the girl who hadn't been sane enough to know her own name. That Belle wouldn't have sat cringing in the back of Ruby's car, fighting to not flinch when a sharp turn causes my knee to brush unexpectedly against Gepetto's. 

It took every ounce of iron will power to not give in to my gasp, to not recoil away from him. In my head, I knew Gepetto meant me no harm, but it is harder to remember that with a touch that had been not of my own choosing, the car's sudden, unexpected lurch giving me no time to truly brace myself against it, against him. 

"Sorry." Ruby mutters just before she is snarling something out the window. The other driver who had nearly succeeded in running us off the road, is screaming back at my friend, actually raising a finger that is universal in it's rudeness no matter the kingdom. Ruby growls, and the sound is so low and feral, it brings to mind just what she can turn into. 

"Ruby?" But she has better control than that. With one last scream shared between them, Ruby gets the car back on the road. I spy the white knuckled grip of her hands on the wheel, Ruby still boiling with anger. Once that would have been enough to force the change on her, but the wolf no longer gets free without Ruby's permission. 

"Jerk." I hear her mutter, and everyone is quick to agree. There's no excuse for that man's rudeness, or the wild, erratic way he had been driving. Especially at this time of day, when it was the hours between the busiest of the work and school rush hours. 

There was a time when once I might have wondered harder at just what the man's reasons were. But I have enough worries of my own to not be taking on the trouble of each and every person in this town. It's the same for all of us, what with all the custody battles, the divorces or lack there of. Everyone is just so busy trying to sort out the mess of their own lives, that as a community, we're all farther apart then ever. 

The curse having changed us in more ways than one, I wonder if normal is but just a dream. Even now as I am driven through town, I see the signs and the strife, spy the people standing out in broad daylight, yelling and arguing among themselves. It only seems to grow worse the deeper into the town's heart we drive past, and more than one fight is poised to become physical. 

"Terrible." Gepetto tsks under his breath. 

"Don't these people have lives...." 

"Of course they do." Granny interrupts Ruby. "They just don't know which life is right any more..." 

"I feel the hardest for the children." Gepetto says. His eyes are colored with his sadness, his own son, Pinocchio lost to him still after all these months. "Having to choose between their birth parents and their curse parents." 

We all make murmurs of heart felt agreement. Of all the messy entanglements and relationships the curse has wrought, the children were by far the biggest victims of it all. In the best case scenario, they were torn between two families, in the worst even more. Some instances had a child with not only two sets of parents, but siblings that had been stolen from yet another family. I know of one sad instance where a small girl of three, had been denied both of her birth parents, and that the mother and father that the curse had inflicted on her, had each in part belong to that of a different, more TRUE family. It left the girl with FOUR sets of parents, each couple fighting over who should retain custody of the child. 

In some ways, I think for that family, fighting over that one child, distracted them from trying to figure out what to do about the messy entanglement of relationships that had run roughshod over hearts that had once been true. So many people had spent the twenty eight years with a different person, had the memories and experience of the curse's false reality, to confuse them and their hearts over. Lines between true loves had been made tangled, people torn on just where their hearts would ultimately lead them. It was no wonder why the town was a powder keg waiting to explode at the slightest provocation. 

Wound tight and angry as the town so clearly was, it was a small miracle that no further incidents were at hand. I think all four of us breathed a sigh of audible relief when the business district's main street was in sight. It seemed less chaotic here, as though the promise of the delicious food from Granny's diner had a calming effect on even the worst of tempers. 

"Are you sure that you don't want to stop in for a bite?" Ruby's voice intruded in on my own private musings. I'd blink and shake my head, give her an apologetic look that wasn't truly that heart felt. 

"I'm good." I say, but it's the crowd in the diner, and not my appetite that has turned me off the idea of food. I'm simply not up to facing a lunch time crowd, to having to endure and dodge the many accidental touches that can and will occur in such a packed setting. 

Ruby nods slowly, but I can tell she's worried. She's never not failed to notice how nervous I am, how shy and hesitant I am around strangers, how I don't like to be touched unexpectedly even by my own friends. And just like I have seen a hundred times on Rumple's face, I see in Ruby's eyes the question that I will never answer. But like Rumplestiltskin, Ruby doesn't outright pry. She never does, content to bide her time, confidant in a way that I am not, certain that the day will come where I will open up and tell her my story. 

It's not a story I want to ever be telling. Not to her, not to Rumple, not to anyone. Especially when they can't make it better, can't change the past that has already happened. There's a tightness in my chest, a cramp in my gut, as the merest whisper of memory goes through me. If I examine that thought, endure the memory it tries to bring, I'll surely break down, and then Ruby really will freak out with her worry. 

I somehow managed to maintain my composure, long enough for Ruby to pull the car up in front of the library. There's a store van parked opposite the street, two men working to unload the supplies from inside it. I glance at the men a tad suspiciously, but neither of them come close to fitting the description of the memory that is so emblazoned in my mind. I'm seeing shadows again, scared, the time distorted by the queen's curse, every stranger that I see making me wonder and worry that it is HIM. And then I am reminded he is not the only one that I have to fear, the van moving enough that I spy Nottingham coming out of a shop. He's got a cigarette in one hand, and the man takes his time lighting it. He actually makes a point to stand there and stare, his determined gaze dark and fixed to a point across the street, at the car in front of the library, all the while. I stiffen in place when it becomes obvious he intends to remain there a while, my hands clenching in place on my lap. 

"Him again?" Ruby grumbled and growled with annoyance. 

"Don't worry." I say it out loud not just to allay Ruby's fears, but my own. "Not when he KNOWS what Rumplestiltskin will do." But it doesn't stop Nottingham from looking, from going out of his way to make his presence known. There's a dark lecherous look in his eyes as he takes a long drag on his cigarette. He's never once talked to me since the curse had been broken, and yet his lurking presence is a constant menace in my life. 

I don't doubt for a second what he would do if the threat of Rumplestiltskin was removed. Not after he once spelled it out in vivid detail just before Rumple had magicked away his tongue. But that brief torture hadn't cooled Nottingham's lust for me one bit. It might have even made it worse, and not for the first time do I find myself wishing Rumplestiltskin had neutralized Nottingham in a more permanent way. 

A thought like that would have once left me appalled for even thinking it. But I am a changed woman now, no longer so sweet and naive. I see the necessity of doing some evil, if it means protecting people from a worst one. 

"Be sure to lock up tight once inside." Granny advises as Ruby eases the car into a parking spot directly in front of the library's main doors. "We'll stand guard until then." She's glaring out the window at Nottingham, and I've no doubt in my mind that Granny wishes she had brought her crossbow with her. 

I nod my thanks, and say my goodbyes. When I get out of the car, I all but run the short distance to the library's entrance with Nottingham's leering gaze upon me. It makes me feel dirty, vulnerable and exposed, as though he is seeing through my coat and my clothes, to my body beneath the many layers. 

My trembling hands somehow don't drop the keys, though the shaking makes it difficult for my fingers to unlock the door. But somehow I manage after the second try, and then I hurry inside. I don't breathe a sigh of relief until after the doors are all closed and securely locked, and even then I stand there shaking. 

"Damn it!" And I am not sure who I am hating on more in the moment. Nottingham or the pirate, the evil queen, or MYSELF. Because of the crimes they have committed against me, or for the way I continue to let myself feel in response. I hate feeling this weak, this frightened, jumping at shadows, shaking all the time. I want to go back to the Belle I once was, the slightly naive but smart princess who had hoped and longed for a true love all her own. 

Blinking back self pitying tears, I unbutton then shrug out of my coat. I lay it and my phone across a desk, then rifle through some unimportant looking papers that don't have much to do with the delaying of the library's eventual grand opening. There's still so much to do, even without the paperwork to clog things up, so many books to be catalogued, organized and shelved. I pick up a few now, and murmur their names to myself. 

With the books in hand and identified, I walk towards the back of the library, where the rows upon rows of shelving units lay. Books are packed tightly on the stack's shelves, but there are still plenty of empty sections that need filling and tending to. The work would be a lot quicker if I had an assistant or two, and yet I preferred the solitude too much to bother with hiring anyone. That would eventually have to change, once the library was open to the public. But for now, I welcomed the quiet and the solace my isolated state afforded me. 

I'd actually start to relax, or somewhat come close to it, as I busied myself shelving books. The shadows still stalked me, maintaining a near constant presence in the corners of my field of vision. I tell myself that I was alone, that I was safe and sound locked inside the library. It didn't completely help with my unease, but it did help to make me ignore the worst of them, even the dark, man sized shape that somehow seemed more threathening than most. I couldn't quite fathom as to why, not until a sound came from it, the noise far too loud and clear to simply be that of my imagination. 

The noise sounded a realization inside me, my heart beginning to beat erratically with my unease. I wasn't happy to find myself with company, but more than displeased, I was scared, that shadowy form too large and masculine in frame to ever pass as a woman. 

"Sorry." I say, struggling to keep from reacting, from showing my fright and unease. The panicked voice inside me wants to scream, thinking of a hundred what ifs, Nottingham the star of more than half of them. "The library's not open yet." I force a breath out of me, make my expression apologetic, as courtesy bids me look up from the books I am shelving. 

Blazing blue eyes trap me in place, my hands, no my entire body starting to visibly shake. The room spins dizzily around me, until everything is a blur. Everything but him, the man a clear, menacing visual amidst all the chaos around him. I can't take my eyes off him, can't stop the fright from leeching the color from my skin. He's everything I remember him as being, tall, dark and handsome as sin. He's even dressed similar to how he had been inside the tower, all dark leather and a bold contrast of color for his vest. That vest is the only thing that doesn't match up to my memories, being a blood red rather than a rich forest green. 

Seeing him, it's as though I've stepped back in time, as though I am back in my cell. I swear I hear the clink clank of chains, and choke on stale air that is suffocating. And then he is kissing me, hauling me back towards the cot and the chains, and I'm too confused to do more than a paltry struggle, grabbing at the leather clad arms around me. My nails scratch and claw against what might as well be iron armor, I struggle and cry out, that frustrated and frightened sound nothing more than a muffled whimper against his lips. 

Where I whine pathetically, he positively purrs, a lustful groan rumbling from deep within his chest. I hear as well as feel his excitement. that desire threathening as a firm throbbing presence against my back. My mouth opens with a sob, my tongue's buds exploding with the texture and taste of him. It's all him, the kiss all uniquely his own, made in equal parts of barely leashed violence and blood thirst, and holding a passion that is growing. It leaves me dizzy, the strength all but sapped from my body, as I sag in his embrace. 

I'm less than a rag doll in his arms, the man lifting me up, spinning me around to face him. His blue eyes burn wild with excitement, that hard unforgiving mouth holding a drop of color to it's lower lip, a thin streak of blood from where my teeth had failed to dissuade him. He stares at me, and it's all lust, dark and perverse, every filthy thought and desire easily read off of his handsome face. 

It makes me shake, a shudder rolling through my entire body. With my body pinned against his, he feels it too, a menacing smile curving his lips just before he kisses me again. I squeak out a protest, push my hands against him in an effort to get free. And then I am falling, tumbling down to the uncomfortable cot that has doubled as my world's center for too long. It creaks and groans in protest at his weight being added to mine, my hands coming up to bat at him. He catches one wrist, pins the other in place with his hook, and kisses me yet again. I struggle and scream, buck my body in a violent attempt to roust him from a top of me. He merely glides into place, fits his body firmly between my trembling thighs. 

For one tortured moment he does nothing but stare down at me. There is nothing soft about him, not the look in his eyes, not the feel of him between my spread thighs. And yet this time when he kisses me, it is somehow different. Different but no less uninvited, his mouth a trembling whisper against mine. 

"I can't get enough of you." His eyes flash excited with that confession, his lips kissing a path along the line of my jaw. A tear streaks down my cheek, and he tastes that too, pressing feather light kisses over my closed eyelids. Its almost tender what he does now, like a grim parody of all I have been taught of love and intimacy. For one all too brief moment, he is gentle, worshipful, kissing all over my face, my neck, and it's like he's forgotten all about why he is really here. For one split second of eternity, I believe it's all about me, Rumplestiltskin and the man's vendetta against him forgotten for desire. 

I shift slowly against him, hear the excited inhale of breath he takes in response to my movements. With his hand and his hook pinning my wrists down, there's not much I can do except speak. 

"I know nothing of a weapon." My lips are to his ear,and this time the shudder that goes through us, starts with HIM. He is the one shaking, his hand a punishing pressure on my wrist. I nearly sob with relief when that pressure leaves me, the man releasing one of my hands so that he can cup hold of my cheek. I can see that he doesn't want to believe me, that he wants to use the weapon as an excuse to continue his abuse of me. My eyes wet further with tears as I beg him to stop in a breathy whisper. 

He stares at me, takes in the sight of my tears, the sob trembling on my lips. Suddenly HE is the one that looks helpless, his hand shaking, an internal struggle raging on inside him. 

"Please." I beg again, and I make the move of bringing my hand up to touch his stubbled cheek. He closes his eyes for a second, leaning into my touch. His hand then covers my own, the man seeming to savor the contact a little too much. I wonder at that, wonder at a pirate who could react as though he has been starved for touch. 

"You make this SO hard." He finally whispers. He comes off so frustrated, and I can only make a confused sound in reply. And then his eyes snap open, and there is this frantic, desperate gleam that makes him look half crazed. I realize then that he no longer cares about the weapon, about his revenge. In the moment it really is ALL about me, and the lust that he is feeling. I cry out in reaction, the fear threading through my voice. 

It takes but a second to happen, but feels like it was an eternity to work through the memories, the traumatic flashbacks of our past. The memory continues to play out in my head, and I look at him with real fear, my fingers going numb, the book dropping from my hand. That loud thump of sound, it jars me back to my present reality, my voice all a tremble as I speak. "You. You're the one who broke into my cell at the queen's palace." 

With that said, I run. But I can't out distance him anymore than I can the memories, the man getting around me, blocking my forward momentum so that I am forced to stop up short with a gasp. I am wild with my fright, looking everywhere but at him. 

"You...you wanted to kill Rumplestiltskin!" I cling to that murderous intent, as though his vendetta will protect me this time. It's better to think that he's here to kill Rumplestiltskin, better and more comforting than what the alternative line of thinking would be. 

I don't see his reaction, but I hear the jealous snarl of his voice. "Oh I still do." He hissed. "But right now, I'll more than settle for you." 

I choke in response to that, suffocating in place on the very breath that I take. I look at him, look at the book case between us, then look at him again. I'm not even thinking, just shoving the book case over, my panic lending me the strength to topple that heavy book case onto him. This time he gasps as he falls over, the books crashing into and around him, the book case trying to squash him flat. I hear his angry cursing, hear him smacking things aide as he screams out my name but I don't turn back. I'm too busy standing in front of the elevator, repeatedly pressing it's buttons, waiting, praying for the doors many mechanisms to unlock and open. 

More sound from behind me, the doors not yet open, and now he's closer yet, and there's a space that might just be wide enough for me to squeeze through. I take a lurching step forward, then scream, the pirate's arms around me. I grab at the door, try to hold on for dear life, but he is hauling me back, pulling me away from what might be the only safe place left to me. The scream that I let out is both fearful and frustrated, my heart and my mind racing, panicked thoughts enveloping me as the memories burst, and the reality of him truly being here takes their place. 

\------------------------------------------------------------------- 

To be Continued...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah the first draft of the second half didn't sit well with me. I spent the whole day worrying about it, and finally decided it wasn't right for the fic at all. I pretty much hate that first attempt. Hope people will like this version better...I haven't decided yet whose POV to do chapter five in. 
> 
> Not much else to say. Just glad to have this rewritten and over with.
> 
> \---Michelle


	5. Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick heads up! In case you somehow missed the notice, the second half of chapter four was completely revamped and rewritten. Check it out if you haven't yet! :) Thanks! 
> 
> \----Michelle

This town is too crowded, it's days too noisy and long. People are everywhere, some talking, many more outright arguing as their conversations spiral into petty grievances, and barbed insults. I even spy a man pushing another fellow about, someone who I think is his woman, doing her best to hold the first back by his arm. Her attempts won't stop the fight from escalating, won't save anyone from getting beaten bloody. There's simply too much anger in the air, this town called Storybrooke too much a hot bed of hate and hostilities. 

It's not my problem. I don't care why so many of this town's people are so angry, I just want them gone. I mentally will them to scurry back into whatever hole that they've crawled out of, but to my frustration only more appear. This latest group stands just out of sight of the library, but I can hear them, louder than most. Their arguments make no sense to me, their voices-nay their very existence, only adding to my frustration. 

My irritation flares, not just with the people, but with myself as well. Stupid, foolish, brash...these aren't traits I normally apply to myself. And yet today, I had been all those things and more, rushing headfirst into trouble. I'd gone in without a plan, without a single man to back me, and ended up stuck as a result. Trapped in one place, with time continuing to drag, night nowhere near close to falling. 

I wait and wonder how much longer must I endure, every second a small eternity that seems loathe to ever end. The sun itself mocks me, the bright shine of it's light ready to catch and expose me, and the prize that I've snatched. There's no course better than to wait, to let the night steal in through Storybrooke, and use it's dark cover to spirit away to the safety of my ship. Understanding that doesn't make it any easier, doesn't lessen my irritation or the impatience that winds through me. 

Nothing does. Nothing save HER. My mood softens whenever I glance her way, some of the tension easing up out of me, the worst of my upset soothed by her nearness. By the sight of her all trussed up and sitting on the floor. Belle makes a pretty picture, with her hands tied behind her back, with the way she both tries to watch me and not, the way her breasts heave with her every panicked breath, her blue eyes beautiful and holding a mix of hurt and confusion and fear. She visibly trembles every time I pace near, so frightened and unable to look away, openly flinching when I reach out towards her, my fingers curling close just short of actual touch. 

Her eyes shimmer with tears, the blue of them like crystal and ever as precious. Her tears are my undoing, dropping me to the floor. I end up crouched down besides her, and this close it's all sharper, the gleam of those tears, the sound of her breathing, the vanilla scent of her hair. It all draws me nearer, her trembling lips the sweetest enticement of them all. 

"Don't." She managed it with a sob. 

"Do it." Counters the voice in my head, and it's all dark and greedy want, a selfish need to lay claim. I want to own her, to possess her, to leave no room for doubt in anyone's head, not hers, not mine. I want the proof of it branded on her, Belle ruined for any other man. The need of it all boils over, erupts as a swear, my mouth fierce and fiercer yet as I bring my lips crashing down on hers. 

I don't just kiss her, I lay assault, a sensual siege of lips, tongue, even teeth. I nip teasingly at her bottom lip, take advantage of her gasp, my tongue thrusting forward. My taste buds come alive with sensation, with the sweet, honeyed feel of her, Belle's kiss an intoxicating mix of heaven and hell, the woman torturing me with how she holds back. With how she tries to deny my kiss, squirming and squealing, trying to scramble away. Her struggles, her reluctance, only excite me, only serve to fuel my determination, my mouth desperate with it's attempt at seduction. 

In this moment, I forget the world. I lose all sense of rhyme and reason, the people, their presence outside, and the trouble they might cause me gone to nothing around us. With every kiss, with every stolen touch, I creep closer to forgetting myself, Belle's nearness, the reality of her so much better than any of the dreams. 

This crazed frenzy she thrusts upon me, this lust I spiral into, its just as powerful as that first time. The first and every time after, the dreams, the nightmares, only making the reality of my need that much more. I growl with a need that has been there for twenty eight years, with a need that has only grown with every dream, and with every nightmare. It leaves ME terrified, panting with exertion, almost violent as I shove her away. 

Belle falls over with a cry, that startled sound accompanied by her panicked breaths. I stare down at her, fight the urge that would have me throw my body a top hers. My own breath is a rasping heave in the room, the sounds of our breathing too loud in the otherwise quiet of the library. 

It's a struggle still, the battle between what is right and what is wrong. I stare at her a long while, the torment of my indecision read clearly on my face. Belle starts to bite at her kiss swollen lip, then thinks twice about such an action when I moan. It turns into a tortured sound at the fright on her face, and then I am shoving back against the bookcase, my body bumping things off it's shelves. 

In that ungainly manner, I stagger to my feet. She's still laying on the floor, still staring up at me, and that gaze is as hurt as it is frightened. The unspoken accusation there, the fear, ground me just barely, and I am now awash with the loathing I have suffered with for some twenty eight years. 

"I'm..." But somehow sorry doesn't begin to cover what I am. I close my eyes at the quiet sob she lets out, the sound and the guilt it brings with it, more powerful than any fist to the gut. My stomach churns with disgust, with the anger that I feel, and I just barely have the strength to take one step away. 

"Please..." I freeze at the broken sound of her voice. "Please promise you won't...you won't hurt me anymore....." 

The worst is that I can't. My fingers squeeze into a fist, my jaw setting with a glower. But my anger isn't directed towards Belle but at myself, at the man who could willingly do such a thing, and do it to the true holder of his heart. 

"I'm the worst." I announce, but it's not meant for her ears. The sound of her quiet weeping follows, Belle whispering another please. The pain of it slices through my heart, nearly turns me back to her, ready to offer her up a world of comfort and promise. I want to pull her against me, to give Belle the comfort she so clearly craves. I don't trust myself to stop at just comfort, knowing the pull she has over me, that unpredictable ache that would as soon hurt her as it would have me love her. 

Such mad need is exactly the reason I had tried to stay away, Belle safe so long as I had kept myself ignorant of her and her whereabouts. The cricket had ruined all that, and I was an odd mix of grateful and angry, wanting to murder and thank the man with one breath. That thinly leashed violence inside me, doesn't numb me to Belle's pain, to her tears and her heartbreak, or to the helpless rage that responds inside of me. But I can't successfully shift the blame. The cricket may have betrayed her, but it was my hand, my body, that had done worst. 

The memory of it rolls through me with a perverse shudder, my eyes squeezing closed tight. It doesn't shut the memory away, doesn't let me forget for one moment every rich and ripe detail, Belle laying there exposed, her dress in navy blue tatters that did nothing save to titillate further. It was an arresting sight, with thin threads straining to hold the remains of the dress together, one sweet nipple completely exposed, the other a stiff protrusion against the wrecked fabric. 

I had moaned at the sight, had wet my lips with hungry anticipation. What was once already so tempting, had proved irresistible now that Belle's full glory had laid revealed before me. With a trembling hand, I had reached my fingers toward her, had caught at that exposed nipple, pulling and plucking it like a string. Belle had twitched in response, had tried to flinch and curl away, a sound that was little more than a hoarse squeak escaping her. 

That sound had pulled at something inside me, my restraint all but breaking. I had fallen on her like an animal, my hungry mouth oh so eager for a taste I was suddenly starved for. With a lusty groan all my own, I had fastened my lips to her, Belle's back arching up off the cot as she had let out the most surprised sounding of screams. My ears had rang with that sound, but I was already too lost, too wild for her, too in awe of her, my need driving me mindlessly to one goal. 

I hadn't been able to stop. I hadn't WANTED to. Kissing her had been my undoing, and with every layer exposed, I only fell deeper into that debauched state. I had touched all over her, no inch of exposed skin spared my fingers or my lips, my hook tearing apart what little was still left of her dress. The honeyed sweetness of her flesh, the softness of her pale skin, the warm nectar my lips coaxed from between her legs. I devoured it all, making Belle shiver and shake, the woman crying out with a soft keening as my skilled tongue brought her reluctantly over the edge. 

She had fought it every step of the way. Had both screamed and moaned, the sounds a music only I was so privileged to hear. Her hands had grabbed at my hair, those short nails of hers scratching at my scalp. Belle had tugged and pulled even as she had writhed against me, cursing one moment, pleading the next. One especially fierce jerk on my hair, had me looking up with a growl. I had let all my incensed rage flash in my eyes, Belle's attempts to deny me this treat transforming me into some rabid dog. She had gasped in response, had instinctively gone as still as she could, Belle's frightened gaze locked in place by my own glower and fury. With something very much like a snarl, I had stared at her while my tongue played across her clit. All attempts to be still had ended at that touch, the woman writhing in place, as helpless under my tongue as she was trapped by my gaze. 

She had no longer pulled at my hair, having instead let her arms fall to the sides, to dangle off the cot in surrender. I would have thought her half unconscious, if not for the sounds she had made, and the frantic rolling of her hips. I had then dug my nails into her skin, hauling and holding her in place, my tongue, my lips, both maintaining that mad pressure on her, making her gush and flow like a river. 

I had drank it all up, greedy for and intoxicated by her sweet taste. Drugged off the nectar of her body, off the beauty herself, I had forgot all about any weapon, so desperate to have her, to claim her. In that moment that coward Rumplestiltskin had been the furthest thing from my mind, Belle and her body the only thing I could think of, the only thing I could see. I was so full of her, her every delectable sound, her every reaction, both the good and the bad. I was on fire for her, my blood boiling, my skin retaining the fevered warmth of hers. I couldn't shuck my coat fast enough, couldn't stop to rid myself of any more clothes. I had barely been able to get my pants open, to release the part of me that had burned the hottest. 

Not even the cold chill that had permeated through the tower could have doused the fire inside me. Nothing could have, nothing but HER. With her body spread and pliant before me, with the same wetness that had glistened on my chin still lingering on her thighs, I had moved into place. Belle had been held trapped by the look in my eyes, by the tormented smile that had curved on my lips. The spell between us had then broke with a pained sound, a wild shriek, Belle having snapped her eyes closed, her shaking hands now shoving at my chest. 

It hadn't made a difference, hadn't stopped me one bit. With my hand on her, my body pumping into place, I had used my weight as a weapon, pinning Belle down. At the wet heat of her, and at the silky tightness giving way, I had lost myself to the same sensation that had been hurting her. And I had been too far gone to truly care, too awash in a pleasure that had been beyond sublime. It had shook me from shoulder to toe, had made me press down harder on her. With only one furious pump of my hips I had come undone, spilling my seed and my soul inside her. 

The shock of it had made my head raise. Her beautiful blue eyes had stared wounded at me, Belle having felt it too, that connection that went beyond just the physical. Her heart beat inside me, Belle's soul a magic that had come home to roost inside me at last. What should have been soothing, a euphoric dream come true, had instead turned to ash, a furious wail sounding, the sob a noise that had started with ME. 

That moment, and the many before it, have haunted me ever since. Every vivid detail a tortured reality that can't be denied. It had been my choice to hurt her, my decision to force her. And I've regretted it ever since, each time I close my eyes, the dream coming. My guilt manifests the nightmare of it, all the regret in my heart not enough to change what has happened. Nothing can, and the truth of it lingers, the reality of my sin mocking me with how I will most likely never be able to set things right. 

That sin manifests as the voice inside of me, that evil whisper borne not of the man, but of the misdeed, the guilt and remorse weighed in equal measure by the greedy, almost frantic need to do it again. That voice whispers seductions in my head, gives life to every bad thought and impulse. It tries to make me forget the self loathing that always follows, tries to cloud my grief and my guilt with the pleasure at hand. It nearly succeeds too, a tremble going through me as I fight to not turn back towards her. 

"She'll never willingly be yours." Mocks the voice in my head. It's laugh of true pleasure, screams at me to just take her. I'm almost that weak, almost ready to abandon myself to the idea. A single thought holds me back, some thread of goodness I don't recognize as a part of me. It whispers of a what if, speaks on the choice to be made, and the good and the bad that can result of it. It's not a true hope it gives me, but the merest chance of it, so much riding on choice, on mine and on hers. 

With a world of hurt between us there might not be anything left to salvage. Belle might not have anything left in her to try. I've seen how she looks at me, how she cowers in fear. But I also remember her at her most wounded, the look in her crystal blue gaze speaking volumes on just what she had felt. The realization that she had had, Belle blinking back new tears, fitful and raging at the precious thing that I had helped shatter. With this body, this lust, I had hurt just about all chance of us. 

The hope that is left, is sliver thin and tiny. It's not nearly enough, the helpless rage and self loathing ready to take hold of me again. The voice inside me screams to end this torture, to not waste my breath on false hopes. To just take and take again, until there is nothing left, not the chance, not the hope. I shake with my indecision, force myself to take another step across the room. Then another, and another, until I've put enough distance between us so as to lose the heavenly scent of her hair. 

"It won't be much longer until night fall." I say, though it's still a few hours off. I feel every second of it, the wait a torture of a different kind. For the both of us, Belle's breath catching on a sob. 

"The streets won't just empty because it is night." She argues. 

"Maybe not. But you'll know what will happen, what I will do, if you dare try to scream for any help." I'm still not looking at her, but I hear plenty enough, the sharp indrawn gasp of breath, the slow exhale of it, and the fearful tremor of her voice's tone. 

"You'll.....you'll kill anyone who tries to interfere. Who tries to..." Another of her shaky breaths. "Who tries to take me from you." 

It almost hurts that Belle is so quick to believe that, but then I've never given her any reason not to. She's seen the bodies, seen the guards I had killed to get to her. I'm a villain in her eyes, and not just because I had raped her. 

"Just so long as you understand that." I say, my back still towards her so that she doesn't see my scowl. I'll use her fear to trick and manipulate her, but I don't have to like it. Not her quick and ready belief in the worst of me, or that self sacrificing nature of hers. There's not a person in this town worthy of her concern, and yet for these squabbling simpletons, she'll willing walk with me to danger. She's a kind woman, a caring person, all goodness and light. Belle is more than I deserve, the healing light to my darkness, that sweet breath of fresh air. For too long I had been drowning, my soul floundering untethered. The touch of her has grounded me, has put everything into a desperate perspective. Belle's not just mine, she is what I have been missing, the other half to my soul and the holder of my heart. To keep her really is worth killing over, and I'd do a whole lot worst for just a taste of her love. 

\-------------------------------------------------- 

To Be Continued....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had trouble to get this one started. Partly couldn't decide on whose voice to do it as. Was leaning towards a Belle POV at first, but then eventually decided I wanted a Hook POV more. Even with that decision made, and a whole bunch of rambling notes, it was still hard to get the chapter started. Once I got about eight or ten paragraphs in, the rest started to flow, but the first batch of paragraphs were the hardest. 
> 
> And a lot of this chapter completely derailed from all the little notes I wrote to myself for it too...*face palms* 
> 
> \----Michelle


	6. Six

It’s hurts to look at him. To take in the blazing blue of eyes that are almost a mirror of my own feelings. The pain and confusion, that anger and the frustration, make him look lost. He’s desperate and drowning, caught in the throes of his own guilt and desires. There’s some kind of battle that wages war inside of him, some internal struggle that colors his every word tense, makes his every action strained. I can’t claim to fully understand it, any more than I can entirely look away. 

With my eyes still on him, I drink in the sight of his strong and powerful form. With those muscled arms that can comfort just as well as hurt, the remembered feel of his hand on my body, of his weight pinning me down, leaves my body shaking. I try not to give in so completely to my fear, to the pain and the regrets such a memory stirs, but there are things I now know, things that I have learned by his hand alone, the hot brand of his mouth, the rough stubble of his cheek, all leaving their marks, their scars upon my soul.

He’s not something I’ve ever healed from. Each touch of his hand as sharp and as biting as that of his hook. It leaves me hot and cold all at once, the frantic way he had had at me, somehow so much worse than if he had set out to purposefully be cruel. That grim parody coupled with his downright feral desperation, has made a mockery of all I had been taught, all I had been led to believe on love and light. He’s sin itself personified, an imposing inevitability that I have been dreading. From the days before the Queen’s curse was cast, to the days that followed it’s breaking, I’ve waited and wondered just when he would return for me. 

For well over a year, I have seen him in every shadow. Trembled in the wake of every dark haired stranger that I passed. The memory of him has plagued my dreams, has haunted damn near my every waking moment. The fear and the regret, the anger that looking at him brings me, competes with the despair threatening to swallow me whole. I can’t give in to any of it, can’t lose my wits so completely. Already caught by him, those feelings, the emotions that try to break me apart, would bind me as thoroughly to him as the corded restraints that he has used to truss me up.

I don’t even know his name. I’m almost hysterical at that, and at the realization that follows, this man both a stranger and the other half of my soul. I’ve felt the truth of that first hand, with this man, this pirate, buried deep inside my body. With him reaching as far as he could, taking as much as he could, the irony isn’t lost that we had both realized at the exact same moment just what this man had been destroying. 

For that alone I should hate him. The anger is there, as well as the fear, and an overwhelming sense of sadness, what he had cost me, cost us, as irreplaceable as my stolen innocence. My hopes and my dreams, my ability to trust, the happy ending I had once envisioned for myself, all gone to a flame, that of the searing heat of his undeniable lust.

Shaking and shivering, and knowing full well that I have to steel myself against him, a year’s attempt at mental preparation all goes to hell with one look at him. He’s different from how I remembered him, somehow so much more of everything than I had prepared for. Darker, more menacing in nature, and all the more devastating in looks. A man as handsome as he, as knowledgeable as he, should never have needed to resort himself to force. The tears prick my eyes at that truth, my soul and my heart feeling robbed of him, by him, tormenting me with thoughts of what could—should have been.

The damage irreconcilably done, the sheer misery that I feel, the pain spiking through me, can’t do away with the fear. He’s touched me far too often for that, the lingering taste of his kiss still potent on my lips. I shake every time he comes near, do my best to hold in a scream. He has me so frightened and tempted, the urge to cry out for help at war with the knowledge of what he will do should anyone come answer. My eyes go to his hook, to that sharp protrusion that passes for his left hand. That alone is all he needs to make good on his threats, to be the killer in truth that I already have known him to be. 

A lethal menace in more ways than one, the scream bubbles up within me, then locks in my throat. I will not be selfish. I can’t! No matter how badly I am in need of a rescue, no matter how much I crave a saving, I refuse to be the reason that someone will die. My frayed nerves don’t care for this last bit of nobility in me, my hysteria mounting. It almost leaves me eager for the night to fall, for the darkness he is so clearly waiting for. Already a few shadows creep into the library, marking the sun’s slow but steady descent. I don’t want to go off into the dark with him, and yet, almost anything seems better than this waiting game that he is playing.

He’s a picture of contrasts, both patient and not, soulfully yearning one moment, then hands on demanding in the next. The touches on my body, the mouth pressing to mine, no rhyme or reason to any of this, save for the lusting inside him. At times in control of it, at others a complete slave to that desire, I can see the struggle within him, feel his frustration at holding back. The pirate wants so badly, that lust focused and centered solely on me. 

Desire to that deep a degree cannot be turned aside for long. I don’t know how I can survive it, how I can survive HIM. That sweet brand of brutality that is so wholly his, those kisses and that sensuality more devastating than any blow or fist. The bruises that I’ve born, the hurt that he’s caused, all a thousand times more painful than anything that the Evil Queen had ever done. 

A bodily hurt can heal over time. Even that of emotional damage can be put aside with enough work and effort. But a blow to the heart, to one’s soul? It’s nothing short of crippling, complete with it’s effective decimation.

Hurt as I am, tortured as I’ve been, the crime committed against me has left me a wounded, hollow half of my former self. It’s affected my dealings, left me unable to trust, to tolerate the simplest of accidental touch. I’ve spent more time frightened and weary, jumping at shadows, running scared at the slightest of sounds. I’ve been thoroughly transformed, no longer the curious, adventure loving girl, but a woman who shies away from new experiences. My life made topsy turvey by all I have been through and suffered, by all I have still feared, why then does something besides my anger, my resentments, my fear, cause my heart to pang with such a mellow beat. With a fool’s compassion and her kindness, something inside me responding to the wounded look in his eyes.

I am a fool to pity him. A fool to hold any sort of soft sentiment towards him. Such empathy will only net me one kind of response, will only leave me even more hurt and broken when this pirate lashes out like the wounded beast that he is. I try to squash down any such feelings, try to keep such an exploitable weakness at bay. That broken piece that is my wounded heart, can’t help but twist, balking at my attempts to deny both my nurturing nature, and the man that is my soul’s match. It’s that protesting part of me that looks for the good in him, that tries to see past the man who had so easily turned on me and had shattered apart not only my world, but all of my beliefs on love and happiness. 

It’s that traitorous voice that tries to see past his crime. That tries to ferret out his reasons for such an act. I don’t want to listen to it, don’t want to leave it free reign to wonder and speculate, to try and justify why this man, why ANY man, would set out to sexually torture and molest an innocent woman for a secret she hadn’t even had. I don’t want to think on just what could have driven him, on what would have made him so desperate as to want to strike Rumplestiltskin dead. My heart that cries out for compassion remains overruled by the steel part of me that had been birthed to life in the wake of my assault.

It should be easy to hate him. To despise the very breath that he takes. For all my fear and regret, the hurt that I have endured, that angry part of me can’t quite swallow down the small kernel of truth. That tiny tendril of confusion, the compassion that struggles to rise to the surface of my emotions. I know that I am a fool, a complete and utter nit wit, done in by the hurt that I see mirrored in his eyes. I try and fight against the effect, that fathomless blue all a smolder with both his desire and his self recrimination. 

It’s a keenly felt regret that slips unbidden, that makes our hearts both ache with longing. The what ifs and the should have been, tortured by the knowledge of the many split divergences that have led us to this unhappy present. The if only fill my head, thought after though of if only I had done this, if only he had said that. Would any of it have made a difference? Would my have trusting him for just a few seconds longer been the saving grace that we both would have needed?

Maybe my trust wouldn’t have been enough to get myself out of that tower. Maybe nothing would have been. But if the seconds could have extended into minutes, if the delay could have been bought with something other than my body...Or if the Evil Queen had been just a little quicker to come investigate, if the question hadn’t been asked and subsequently answered. If he had accepted my words at face value, if he had believed my insistent claims of knowing nothing where his vaunted weapon was concerned. But most of all, I think to myself how different things would have been, if that stolen touch hadn’t led to even more.

He hadn’t come to my tower looking to abuse me.. That much I want to believe. Pawn though I was, unlike the Evil Queen, I had sensed no outward malice in him, no inherent desire to hurt for the mere sake of it. I want to believe, actively work to believe that the man who is my soul’s match is not an overtly cruel person. That he isn’t a murderer and a rapist. That he has had a good reason for everything that he’s done and will still do. My desperate heart clings to that idea, cleaves to a justification that can never be enough.

I’ve seen the bodies, felt first hand the depths of his desperate depravity. For all the regrets he might feel NOW, the pirate hadn’t hesitated one bit. There hadn’t been anything like true sorrow in his eyes, that blue colored with an eagerness that had relished the excuse I had given him. A chance that he had seized upon, that work rough hand touching on me. My heart still tries to make excuses, still tries to insist that the pirate had only meant to frighten me into compliance. The cynical part of me won’t accept that, won’t stop demonizing him from the start. He had seen that I hadn’t known, had read the desperate truth of it in my eyes, and had still used that as an excuse. The reason to touch on me more, to kiss on me more, until it was all blurring together, the need for the answers that I still did not possess, lost to the desire, the excitement coursing through him. What had started out methodical, a cold driven torture meant to break a woman’s spirit into giving him exactly what he had wanted, instead the pirate himself had been the one caught. With each touch of my skin, with every kiss stolen, with every inch of my body laying revealed to him, it had become less and less about his answers, and more and more about the growing sexual need inside him. 

With the same hand that had touched on my body, with the very fingers that had stroked patterns into my skin, it was he who had been seduced. Made intoxicated by me, by my protests and my body’s own helpless response, by the time that breathy pronouncement was uttered, he truly had been lost, unable to get enough. 

He had taken his fill of me then, falling on me like some starved beast. What little had remained of my prison garb, had fallen further victim to his hook. With my every part exposed to him, I had been touched on and tasted. With those same lying lips, he had made me experience just what it is to be a vulnerable woman. With those devouring kisses, and hot open mouthed enthusiasm, I learned first hand through his teasing the responses my body was capable of. There was the pebbling of my nipples, the fear that sparked that initial tightening of my flesh soon overpowered by the feel of soft lips pursed unyieldingly on me. With the hollowing of his cheeks, with a moan thrumming in his throat, every suckling pull had made me ache.

Without even wanting it, my body had curled closer to his. The feelings that he had been arousing, that instinctive need for more, had had me gasping and a moaning, my desperate voiced pleading sounding half hearted even to my own ears. I didn’t go completely mindless. Despite such sharply pronounced stimulation, the many new and foreign sensations that had aroused so wanton a response, I had still been so frightened. I hadn’t realized that my body itself could betray me so, my hands pushing at him even as my thighs quivered and parted at his urgent command.

My body all but mastered by his desires, the fight was truly slanted in his favor the instance I had felt the rough stubble of his cheeks, the hot breath of him on me, that wickedly sinful mouth open and ardent upon me, the wet heat of my arousal coating not only his tongue and lips, but glistening on his chin’s scruff. Sheer mortification had speared through me then, giving frantic, renewed life to the fight that had been dying inside of me. One last desperate attempt, one last ditch effort to stop and dissuade him, had had my hands pulling on his hair. 

A snarl had been my reward, a look in his eyes that had made my blood run cold. With the blue of it blazing, with his stare locked on and pinning me in place, his tongue had done a slow and purposefully licking against my heated flesh. The last of my resistance had melted clean away, my body collapsing in place. It wasn’t a full out swoon, some part of me all too aware of the sensation of the pirate’s mouth working my womanly flesh over. With each dig of his tongue, with each slurping relish, he ran roughshod over my senses. What started as a tingle, became a full out ache, the fire he stroked across my flesh transforming me into someone—something I did not recognize. Not the voice that came out of me with it’s frantic, desperate squeals, or the urgent way that my hips had rolled and had writhed about for his amusement. 

Lost to it, lost to HIM, my body had given itself over, something so profound breaking apart and washing over me. A euphoria the likes of which I had never before experienced, sensation coursing it’s way through me. From the tips of my curled toes, to the fever staining my cheeks pink, I felt the climax with every part of my body and soul. It tightened things inside me, made me both gasp and moan, and blink back tears.

With the thrumming beat of my own heart sounding loud in my ears, with the rapid rise and fall of my chest with my every breath, I had laid there stunned. Dazed beyond compare, exhausted from the ordeal, there had been no fight left in me. NONE. Not even the feel of him covering me, the hard heat of his manhood probing open my still quivering flesh, could arouse anything more than an exagerated squeak. I had been defeated then, thoroughly and utterly, pinned in place by the look in his eyes, by the lust and the power of him. Completely subdued by it, by him, not even my pained scream had reached him, the man having penetrated inside me.

With the tearing of my hymen, with him seated inside me, with the pain serving as a wake up, I had locked eyes with him. That feral gleam in his eyes, the embarrassed red of his skin, the pirate’s climax was downright hurried, the immediate response of his body to mine proven by the copious amount of come jettisoning inside me. His own fierce expression had been lost to his shock, the tortured anger all alit in his eyes. 

I’ll never forget that sound that he had let out then. That horrified reaction, that wailing sob of pure misery. It had all clicked into place then, not just for him, but for me, my eyes having misted over as tear upon tear had been shed. I had cried then, not just for what he had done to me, or what he had done to himself, but what he had cost us BOTH. 

There’s no coming back from it, no forgetting or forgiving his mistakes. Though my soul has responded to his, has resonated with a sureness and a clarity that came with a recognition that could only belong to my other half, I cannot get over his crimes against me. I WON’T! For all that he’s cost me, for all that he’s denied us both, I’ll fight him. I’ll do more than just battle, I’ll crush his heart in turn. For all that he’s done to me, for all that’s been lost, somehow I’ll make him pay. 

 

To Be Continued....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So....long time no write. When was the last time I updated any of my Once fics? Probably since the summer....oops. But I’ve been going through a lot of things in my real life, family stress and drama, medical issues (Got diagnosed with severe sleep apnea. I stop breathing 62 times an hour when in REM sleep. Cpap machine is helping with the breathing, but not with how tired I still am all the time.), and of course how devastated the fourth episode of season seven made me. I hate that they killed off my fave female character. I was pretty upset and couldnt bring myself to work k on once things as a result.
> 
> Though I am still watching the show. It got so good once Drusilla was revealed to be awake and the baddie. XD But then just as I start working on one of my Once fics, my friend Zerousy gives me the news the show has been canceled....But I didn’t let it derail me.
> 
> Had a bit of a hard time trying to decide what fic to work on. Several times I started to reread the pirate au...but never got far. I thought about broken hearted comfort, or the shattered sight one...but ultimately went with this one. I have been wanting to update Not Here For The Books for so long....and have been equally stuck on how to do it. It’s probably a mistake to make my return with this particular fic, but it’s what I wanted to work on. I’ve plenty of ideas for it, too many in fact, to the point I am having trouble deciding some things, cause some of my plans would contradict each other greatly. This was an extra hard chapter to write, cause it’s sorta like....well I am trying to get from point a to point b...i.e. get them out of the library, and to his ship. But that didn’t happen in this chapter either. @_@
> 
> I also had a mishap with this chapter. I started to write it yesterday, got a little over a page written. But I wasn’t feeling it, wasn’t happy with it. I took a break, came back a few hours later, sure I would start over. Well now I am glad I wasn’t happy with it, cause I realized I had written it in the wrong style. It should have been first person perspective like all the other existing chapters. Face palms. Regardless, I am glad I caught the mistake, and that I was able to write the chapter to completion. Took me a while though, with lots of breaks in between. I feel so rusty at writing too...
> 
> I’m kinda hitting my head, cause I wonder if some of this is too subtle. Mainly I am going for another paranormal twist. They’re soul mates who didn’t recognize what they were to each other, until too late...A concept I haven’t yet touched upon in any of the existing chapters is true love versus soul mate. In this fic’s head cannon of mine, they’re not the same thing. They CAN be, but it’s not an instantaneous thing. To get true love you have to put the time and effort in, get to know the person and learn to like and love them. And they you. Ah I am probably butchering the explanation. I swear it makes sense in my head. I find it it’s not in story form, I mess up explanations all the time. I just can’t seem to explain anything unless I write it out as a story. @_@
> 
> Okay I think i babbled enough. I hope there are people still out there, reading and reviewing (hint hint! Reviews help keep me motivated. Can’t always promise a quick update, but nothing depresses and makes me less inclined to write, then when i feel like no one cared about the new content....sad but true. I’m the type who needs lots of hand holding, when a chapter is met with silence, I automatically assume I did something wrong, even have thought “OMG! I ruined the story.” I hate that I think like that....) and supporting Captain Beauty. :)
> 
> \----Michelle


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